Ball of fire 'super big and bright,' possible meteor, seen falling out of sky over Seattle area

Originally posted by Glassbender777
Hmm, When I was camping the other night, "Saturday" I saw 2 HUGE white balls of light fall out of the sky, Ive seen hundreds of meteor's, but never
this bright or big These two looked as big as Jupiter or bigger, much brighter, No tails, and not very fast.

Jupiter is not *that* bright.

If that's what you call "huge", then you aren't getting out enough.

I don't want to boast, but I have personally seen dozens of fireball class meteors that are brighter than a new crescent Moon, and a few that are
brighter or as bright as a full moon in the last 15 or so years that I have been observing

Originally posted by Glassbender777
I personally think Earth is travelling through some dense debri out there in space, hope none are big enough to cause a Global Catastrophe

Most of this is in the form of very small meteoroids (under 1mm), but some can be a few cm, and occasionally bigger than this. Cometary material is
extremely fragile though, so it "burns up high in the atmosphere" in the VAST majority of cases.

The other source of objects is the asteroid belt, which is responsible for the type of objects that create big fireballs when they enter the
atmosphere. Asteroids are constantly being kicked out of the asteroid belt, where there is an almost limitless supply of them. They are more worrying
than cometary debris, since they are composed of harder material that is capable of penetrating the atmosphere in extreme cases.

Thankfully, extreme cases are very few and far between, and there is absolutely no evidence that there is an increase in these kinds of
object.

Until recently, the worldwide news connections just were not in place to let everyone know about this kind of thing, obsess over it, scrutinize it and
not only report it to a central reporting website, but find out that hundreds of other people saw the same thing. Used to be, you'd step outside for
a minute, see something WOW and tell the family, maybe the people at work the next day, and then the thrill would pass.

In 1865 there were people out in the sticks who didn't know Lincoln had been shot for months. In 1920 you had to go out of your way to read a paper
or listen to the radio to know anything that didn't happen on your city block. In 1963, people watched the Kennedy assassination aftermath in almost
real time, worldwide.

Now, everyone carries a phone, a camera and an instant uplink ability to the entire planet, and they're all busily typing away in annoying text-speak
and posting shaky images that could be aliens, could be pigeons.

AND we're going through a comet tail with some rather large chunks in it. If it's the end of the world, an awful lot of money-making doomsayers are
going to have trouble spending the dough they've been collecting.

No meteor, it was the Galactic Federation of Light in their space ship passing by because they just picked up Alfred Lamont Weber. I think he lives
out there close to Seattle somewhere. They are probably just taking him to the 5th Dimension again. lol

Originally posted by MNnativeamer
No meteor, it was the Galactic Federation of Light in their space ship passing by because they just picked up Alfred Lamont Weber. I think he lives
out there close to Seattle somewhere. They are probably just taking him to the 5th Dimension again. lol

I hope so. I've had private emails with him about 'Tolec' and I found him seriously delusional. Scary to see in a lawyer.

Here is some video of a local news report. Seems a bit conflicting. On one hand, they say near Arlington, then they mention NE of Sedro
Woolley....which is a good 20-30 miles away from Arlington. So I dunno. Wish I had seen it!!

Originally posted by westcoast
Here is some video of a local news report. Seems a bit conflicting. On one hand, they say near Arlington, then they mention NE of Sedro
Woolley....which is a good 20-30 miles away from Arlington. So I dunno. Wish I had seen it!!

Basically, meteors are brighter than people expect, and since our brains are hard-wired to interpret something that is bright as being close, people
often think a meteor is much closer than it actually is.

Originally posted by Hydrawolf
While resting my eyes from reading, I was laying in a hammock in the driveway in Surin Thailand. I was looking directly at the moon when a vapor trail
shot across the breadth of the sky in a blink of an eye. The vapor trail disapaited equally across the sky. Fastest thing I ever saw.

SEATTLE — A ball of fire, a possible meteor, was seen falling out of the sky over the Seattle area Wednesday night, authorities said. Residents
north of Seattle, off Interstate 5's Exit 212 near Arlington, saw something coming apart in the sky, police and the Washington State Patrol said. No
planes were reported missing, and nothing was found by police. "We are clearing the scene and assuming it is a meteor, unless we hear otherwise,"
the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said in a tweet.

Each of those dots is as big as (or bigger than) Detroit, if they're rendered 'to scale'. That's exaggerated.

Sorry, no. The image is a representation of scale and amount. Not size. It would be impossible to show an image of the Earth like that with a diameter
over 7,000 miles, and then show a dot the correct size for an object 2 inches big. It would be invisible.

At least it would be a nice way to die, a giant meteor approaching the earth would be a beautiful view lol

From what I understand, if they are big enough to destroy the population, if you can see it, you'll be fried by it. I guess that would better than
having flaming rocks fall on you from the other side of the planet and 300 mile-an-hour winds...

Interesting enough, fireball sightings have been on the rise over the last 8 years.

The American Meteor Society keeps impeccable records. To make it into the index, they have fairly strict criteria concerning brightness (must be at
least -3 at zenith) and multiple, contacted witnesses , with or without video or pictures. So, over the last 8 years:

463 Events found in 2005
516 Events found in 2006
588 Events found in 2007
726 Events found in 2008
694 Events found in 2009
951 Events found in 2010
1623 Events found in 2011
1580 Events found in 2012 and counting.

It is possible that the frequency rise of late is due (in part) to the increase in webcams used in surveillance as well as in vehicles. Also,
population rise might skew the figures higher. However, there is a definitive spike between 2010 and 2012 which is quite interesting.

The real figures could be ten-fold, since they have such strict requirements to get into the catalog index, and many people see them, but do not
report them.

It would be interesting to see how the average number of reports per event change over the years, which might give some clues as to what is.going on.
I'd do it myself, but I have very little time to spare right now.

BTW - I believe you meant to say "must be at least -3 at horizon", since the atmospheric
extinction is greater towards the horizon, so a -4 mag. meteor seen at the zenith would be around -3 mag, if seen at the horizon.

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